Michael Freer met Bridie Fortune at a dance with his team mates after a match at Lansdowne Road

A former Leicester rugby player is desperately seeking the girl he met in Dublin while touring on an away match nearly 60 years ago.

Michael Freer is now 79, and looking for Bridie Fortune ‘the very nice girl’ that he danced and talked with all night after his rugby match.

They were scheduled to meet up afterwards in London in 1961, after he wrote to her in Dublin on his return.

However, he was on call with the force at the time and had to rush off of the train to go the office putting an end to their reunion.

“I never got a contact number for her because I had to leave so quickly,” he said.

““I had to go back on a case that was quite urgent and I wouldn’t blame her if she was annoyed. I’m annoyed because I let her down. She had bought tickets to see a film in the theatre and I didn’t get to pay her back.

“I have always thought about her, yes. I thought I let her down quite badly.”

Mr Freer later married and settled in Leicestershire but lost his wife a few years ago.

He began looking for Bridie by taking out adverts in local newspapers but has had no luck as yet. He is not sure of where she is from but told Newstalk that he assumed she was from Dublin and remembered that her brother was a priest.

“I think it’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack. It’s amazing how many bloody Fortunes there are in Ireland, it’s crazy. I’ve talked to four Bridies in a fortnight,” he added.

However, Bridie Fortune may well have settled in London herself if she was over in the 60s.

Do you know of her whereabouts since then, is she a relation of yours? Get in touch with The Irish World if you have any information via email fionao@theirishworld.com or 0208 453 7800.